It was the first of Jasirid and the sky was a rich coral pink that deepened to red at the horizon and the seas were calm, gently lapping at the shore. Sol threatened to rise on the land within a ven but the heat, however, had not yet come and the slight breeze that blew in off the water made those present thankful for their thick robes. The moons, most notably were stacked in the sky with the little moon Ahraan passing in front of the larger Dhelarly, the partial eclipse creating strange half shadows upon the landscape. It would have made for a beautiful drievette, were it not for the bodies.
Acolytes in gray uniforms flitted around following the ritual that had taken place on the shore. An old man sat upon a makeshift throne that was really just a crate with a blanket and decorative cushion, but it appeared grand and that’s really all it was about. He had in his hands a piece of parchment that he and a significantly younger man at his shoulder, were reviewing. Their ritual, they believed, had failed though they’d done everything right according to the instructions.
They knew it may take several tries to succeed, that’s why this was just the first of several rituals that would take place. They would try as many times as was necessary. It was imperative that they achieved their goal before prophecy came to pass. He dismissed the young man beside him to go call in the report while he organized the clean up situation. Despite the orders for the deed to be done it wouldn’t do to leave the dead that way.
He heaved himself up and onto his old bones and walked down the beach, toward the ruined husk of the TVE and the first of the bodies that had been taken down and awaited blessing. They weren't monsters, everyone deserved a blessing to take them beyond.
The others made way for him and a young acolyte led him to the first body. He knelt down in the sand beside the young woman. Like all the others she had the dark, sooty, burn marks pouring from her eyes, nose, mouth and ears where her fen had been forced out of her all at once. There were scorch marks all along the remains of her clothes and body where her own fire had burned her. It certainly wasn't a pretty sight but the Grand Wizard kept his gaze steady as he placed his hands over the woman's face, just barely hovering above her nose, covering her eyes and mouth. He said the blessings and once he was complete he reached into his pocket and pulled one of the many tiny, flat stones he had there. He placed it between the woman's eyebrows, just above her burned out eye sockets.
“I truly am sorry child,” he said, “but your death serves the will of the Universe and will not be in vain.” He rose to move on and another acolyte quickly moved to place a thin, gauzy square of fabric over the dead woman's face.
—
On the first of Jasirid, a terrible and incomprehensible thing was unleashed on Dhelaran soil not for the first, but for the second time. Nobody present had been alive for the first time so none had any idea of what it was they’d truly done.
It was hard to call it a creature. It was hard to call it anything. Some said it had far too many legs while others said it had none at all. Some remembered haunting eyes that pierced the soul and others described horrible, gaping holes where eyes may have once been. The only consistent description of the thing was that the sight of it was deeply, deeply, upsetting and that the sound it made would bring anyone that heard it to tears.
Whatever it was, indescribable or not, it hungered.
It arrived silently, slipping into reality without anyone noticing at first. The thing saw through dizzying binocular vision at first. The body it inhabited was heavy and limp. It hadn’t felt the weight of flesh surrounding it in an eternity and the feeling was...odd. Slowly and carefully it wiggled an extremity trying not to exert too much force, trying not to break anything. Mortals were so delicate after all. This body was rather broken, it found, but not unfixable.
It pooled its essence at the surface of the vessel that tied it there. It oozed from the eyes, the nose, the ears, even the pores. That was when the first cries of concern came. The creature engulfed its vessel from head to toe in a thick, fluid-like exoskeleton. Its limbs extended and its body rose away from the place it was held, oozing out of the restraints that held it. Its new body shimmered a color that, when pressed, people would not be able to describe consistently. Finally it’s single, great eye bubbled to the top of what was now a mockery of the human form- all limbs and and a great, hulking, torso.
People had begun scattering in every direction, shouting as they went. Dozens of feet pounded through the sand with too much urgency and not enough traction. The creature let out a wailing scream and people stopped in their tracks to drop and cover their ears, crying out in agony. The creature carried itself on as many limbs as it needed to keep itself upright and moving forward. There were so many scattering bodies it was hard to focus on any single one. Long, thin, spikes shot out from the oozing mass in multiple directions. Any of the fleeing people that the spikes hit were immediately sucked in on themselves, to a tiny singular point before an audible pop and crackle sounded, like firecrackers. From each of the points there was a burst of blood and bones and viscera that fell in a hot, wet mess in the sand staining the area dark.
In its frenzy to feed, the creature missed the moment that another consciousness awoke within it.
Mezalie opened her eyes and there was only darkness.
She struggled trying to find a way out but she felt like she was fighting against the tides of a dark sea. As she tried to reach the surface the waves dragged her back down. She couldn’t decide if this was better or worse than the vast emptiness from before. Where was she now? She closed her eyes again. Maybe if she could shut out everything else she could focus on her other senses.
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Once her own eyes were closed a great swiveling orb appeared above her. She fought her way up to get a glimpse of anything that might be beyond. As she approached, pleas for mercy, shouts of 'monster', and sobs for the goddess Ellani skittered along the forefront of her mind. The smell of hot blood wafted past her senses. As she peered down into the orb, the view changed erratically as if the viewer couldn’t focus on any one thing. Bodies lay in pieces on the ground, decapitated, limbs wrenched from their sockets and blood pooling around what was left. Those that weren't frozen in terror ran, trying to escape.
Her viewpoint snapped to the left, to a man on the ground. He was scrambling backwards clumsily against the sand, his mouth agape in horror. In an instant the vision changed and he was closer. She was looking down from a height that surprised even her.
She felt a low rumbling at first and then it became a persistent buzzing and the buzzing became a high pitched whine and finally came the scream. Not the screams of the fleeing people and not the screams of the man before her but the awful, inhuman wailing of the monster.
For that brief moment she could feel her body, alive somewhere within this dark space, because she could feel the shiver that ran through her. She shook her head and the view through the big open orb shook with her. She looked down, towards herself, and all she saw was dripping, black ooze. Her attention panned back up to the man before her, stricken with fear.
"Please…please….please" He was heaving out over and over again in a mantra. His eyes looked liable to pop out of his head at any moment. She opened her mouth to speak to him but what came out was another inhuman screeching, so awful the man at her feet began to weep.
Something, a fen like nothing she'd encountered before, quickly overthrew her. She lost the feeling of control, her sense of self fading into the unknown. She felt powerless to stop or look away as a dark, slimy, maw opened and ripped the man apart. She was both enraptured and appalled by the sight before her until a gentle 'thump' called the attention of the monster behind it. Her vision once again swiveled and the sight of a wrinkled old woman in green robes came to her. She was holding a short staff that Mezalie recognized.
She felt an anger rising in her core at the sight and this time there was nothing to stop it from overflowing out of her like lava. The woman raised her staff again, aiming it at her. The jaws of the creature loosened, dropping a forearm, and the vision fixated on that single spot and ignored the chaos around it. Without warning, she was there, hovering above the woman, watching the fear pooling in the creases of her leathery face. An ear-splitting scream was released, her anger pouring out in it. The woman's hands began to shake lightly, her mouth falling open in a scream that never made it to her lips.
The monster made to lunge down and snap its jaw over her but an invisible force stopped it. A barrier stood between it at the mortal it felt a bubbling vitriol for. It tried again and again to push through, slamming itself against the barrier to no avail. It screamed out in frustration.
The old woman held her staff before her firmly. Hers, unlike the others’, had a small stone embedded into the point that looked rather unremarkable in appearance however it pulsed with an old, forgotten fen.
The creature became frenzied in its need to destroy not only the mortal holding it but the stone itself. Its cries becoming even more violent on the ears of those on the beach. It threw itself once again, particularly hard and the force of the blow threw the old woman to the ground, throwing the staff to the ground. The monster roared in malice as it reared and swiped a disfigured appendage over the woman raking across her. The smell of blood wafted into the thing’s sensitive senses. The creature reached in and poured itself into the inflicted wounds. It devoured as it went, removing matter from the inside out.
Before it could finish consuming its victim the creature felt a change in the energy flow around it. Its great eye swiveled quickly, lookng for the source of such a disruption. It quickly spotted a distortion appearing, a small tear in in the otherwise correct flow of energy. its last meal forgotten, the creature retracted itself from the husk of the old woman. It ignored the fearful cries of the mortal creatures scrambling along the beach around it. They were of no concern to it.
The distortion grew, becoming visible now to even the mortals. The creature, curious about a potentially bigger, better meal, approached the area. It skittered across the space on its disjointed form. Just as it approached the distortion, leaning its eye closer to inspect the area, a burst of energy shot forth from the widening distortion. The creature screeched and receded its eye into itself. It hissed and vibrated, its form shooting long pulsing spikes of fluid-like body out from itself as it thrashed and howled.
Another blast of energy shot out, again hitting the shimmering, wailing monster. A form pressed through the distortion, first a hand pushing forth and then the rest of a body following after, the distortion receding slickly to reveal a young man. He wore a thick hooded coat that ended low on his hips over pants and heavy boots, the hood up.
As he marched closer to the creature, it was in long confident strides. The creature's great white orb came forth to see him momentarily before disappearing back in again. Suddenly the creature began to sink in on itself, shrinking down and folding in and suddenly the shape of a woman became apparent. Then all at once the creature had receded and all that was left was the girl. Her eyes blinked once, twice, before rolling back as she fell face first into the sand where she stood.
“Mezalie!” The young man shouted. He ran the last few steps to her, falling to his knees in the sand at her side. He quickly rolled her over, brushing the hair back from her face. He pushed his hood back, long hair falling forward over his shoulder. He leaned his face down to hers, turning his head to listen for breath. She gasped quickly, eyes shooting open as she sat up abruptly, their heads colliding. They both let out a yelp, Mezalie falling back into the sand, blinking. He turned to face her, a hand pressed to the side of his head.
“Mezalie.” he breathed out, relieved. She scrunched her brow, narrowing her eyes looking at him. Her eyes were still hazy and unfocussed but she knew she didn’t recognize the face looking down at her.
“Where am i?” She slurred out. Quickly he looked up. He saw the carnage around them, bodies littered the beach, from both human and inhuman monsters. He saw that the few remaining people alive on the beach aside from themselves were peering at them from their hiding spots. Many were holding weapons and they were all pointed directly at them.
Suddenly a pulse of energy rang outward from the young man, the sand whipping up in ripples flowing outward. He wavered, swaying unsteady before he slumped forward. Both hands shot to his head as he grunted in pain. Mezalie looked at him, confused, not understanding what was going on. He still hadn’t answered her yet. The man took a deep breath, letting it out through his nose. He raised his head again, looking back at her.
“Hang on. I have to make this quick if we want more time.” He smiled kindly, softness in his eyes as he looked down at her. “First we’re going far away from here.” He said with finality.
The green robed priests and gray suited acolytes looked on as just as strangely as the young man arrived, a shimmering distortion appeared around him and swallowed both him and the girl and then they were gone.